1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the application of improvements to vehicular passenger safety devices or apparatus and in particular to the field of deceleration controller apparatus such as vehicular stored air-bags intended to be deployed in vehicular accidents to provide controlled deceleration of or stability of a driver, passenger or occupant already strapped into seated position by seat-belt devices or torso harnesses, intended to minimize injuries suffered by the rapidly hurled occupant or air-bag impacted occupant during vehicular impact.
2. Background of the Invention
There is replete in the pertinent prior art, a wide variety of types, shapes and deployments of air-bags, means of storage or release of air-bags, designs and utilities of seat belts or torso harnesses generally utilized to restrain the occupant in a passenger seat, and to impede, intercept and/or control the continued movements of the occupant's body (upper body) which is suddenly left moving at the same rate of speed as was the vehicle, upon the event of a crash or impact accident. The attained results of minimizing harm or injury to the occupant by such means of air-bag deployment and use of seat-belt or torso harnesses have been mixed at best and often times less than desirable. For example, safety tests are often conducted at crash speeds of 30 MPH or less, and the majority of prior art safety devices are less than adequate to prevent or retard serious injury during severe impact forces of higher speed accidents. As a standard practice, the automobile industry and state laws require the use of seat belts and air-bags as standard equipment in passenger automobiles. The prior art has not taught the application of controlled deceleration applied for vehicular applications, although examples of controlled deceleration are used on an aircraft carrier to employ nets or lines to snare incoming airplanes to provide rapid but controlled deceleration.
The field of application of the present invention is applicable to any moving vehicle wherein the passenger can be strapped into a seated position by standard configurations of seat belts, wherein the present invention provides improved safety net harness means for controlling the deceleration of the passenger's upper body during high-speed impacts either without injury altogether or minimizing the impact injuries as would otherwise be suffered by improved deceleration controller device comprising the present invention. The safety net harness means is a combination assembly of raising the harness means upon impact to enclose the occupant's torso, head and neck in the safety net to provide deceleration, and to employ motor and gearbox means to control the restraint of the safety net harness and to provide sensing apparatus to measure the forces being applied to the safety net harness and to measure the trajectory of the occupant's movements to use with the motor and gearbox means in controlling the movement of the harness means and providing deceleration needed to prevent injury to the occupant. The present invention would ideally supplant current state-of-the-art industry standard types, shapes, and methods of deployments of seat-belts or torso harnesses even while combined with a variety of deployed air-bags. Where speed is essential, electrical and computer components provide a more finite control.
There is provided for the present invention an improved deceleration controller apparatus for providing in combination both controlled restraint and deceleration controlled movements of an automobile occupant at time of impact or collision, and includes movable harness means positioned over the central mid-section or chest area of the torso of the seated occupant, connected at its upper portion to combination cable means and electric solenoid means, impact switch means to detect impact, and programmable logic computer and PC processor circuit means to provide output signal to activate the electric solenoid means triggered by the impact switch means, to tighten the cable means connected to the movable harness means at its upper portions, left and right side thereof, whereby the harness means is engaged to be moved upon collision impact to be pulled over the head of the occupant to provide uniform engagement of the body and head of the occupant to guard against injury, and further, the harness means is engaged or connected along its lower portions, preferably the left and right side thereof, by tension belt means engaged over controller pulley means and controlled by gearbox means and connected motor means to provide deceleration control to the movements of the harness means proportional to the measured forces of impact and measured movements of the occupant against the harness means, to control the movements of the occupant during impact, through deceleration control of the harness means and thus the occupant.